took my exam today.
reading this forum over the past few days helped me, so here's my experience:
FA/Savarese will get you 70-80% of the questions. These 70-80% of questions are EXTREMELY easy. My main focus was USMLE, so I did Uworld and studied my a-- off ofr that, so I attribute a lot of what I found to be "easy" to my preparation for USMLE. so overall, very doable, however, I was bit upset at the quality of our national licensing exam - spelling errors, factually incorrect CORRECT answer choices, grammar errors--- and a good 10% of the questions seemed to be written in a manner that was meant to confuse you, but it seems like by the time the individual was done writing the question, they had only succeeded in confusing themselves. So just be ready for that --- especially if you're used to USMLE type questions, and don't be discouraged.
OMM - Savarese pretty much covered 80% of it.Read the first 12 chapters over the past few days and that was enough. I also did all of the Combank OMM questions last night to solidify my knowledge - that helped. My program had a solid OMM department, so I attribute some of my success to that as well. Definitely look outside of Savarese for Chapman's points as many have pointed out. I'm glad I did just that after seeing what people had posted here. Free pennies in the piggy bank.
There will be stuff that is beyond Savarese, but that's just the nature of these exams. Again 80% extremely easy if you've put the time in. 20% either I couldn't understand what they were asking me, or it took a bit of thought. But my opinion may not be the best opinion since I didn't study very long for it.
Also, if you're looking for an extra source, I cross referenced some chapters in Savarese with COMLEX - OMM review, and that helped as well. It in Q&A format, which I like. Honestly, had I the time, I thought that book was actually better and would've liked to have spent more time with that.
Micro - I learned micro pretty well from FA and Uworld throughout my board studies. I also had read parts of CMMRS. My micro professor was pretty awesome this year, and I learned her stuff well. Don't think CMMRS was necessary, and what I learned from my micro professor might've netted me an extra 2 points, but I'd say 95% of the questions could;ve been answered from FA. They throw in some distractor bugs that are quite obscure, but the answers were never anything I did not know. Again, the only thing that might trip you up here is the wording of a question stem so just be careful about that.
Pharm - 90% extremely straightforward. However, for me, there were definitely a handful of questions (3-4) that I found to be bad. i.e. testing what I thought were vague side effects (vomiting, nausea, HA -- I mean, honestly, there are thousands of drugs that can cause at least one of these SE at the right dosages) --- important info, I know, but not what's usually considered HY (esp in terms of board exams). OR knowing the BEST drug out of a group of drugs that all could be used for a certain condition. I haven't been on the wards yet, so I really don't know what's best. However, even with those I was still able to reason my way to the right answer based on what's in FA. At least I thought so.
Repro - heavily hit. 90% straightforward. 10% - hard -- only because you don't understand what they're trying to ask or because you're not a OB/GYN. Some questions were quite clinical, and I was only able to answer them bc of what I was able to squeeze out of my memory from school lecture material. Definitely do the Combank Qs for repro. They also helped me with a few of the more clinical questions.
Neuro - lot of questions but very easy. I read through HY neuro for USMLE twice, and had I been studying for just comlex, it would've been overkill.
Endo - not much, and super easy if you know whats in FA. phys is much more difficult on the USMLE, so this seemed like a cakewalk to me. BRS phys would be overkill here.
Heme - not much, and extremely easy. Some questions, again, d/t wording and erroneous lab values, were a bit confusing, but you can kind of figure out what they're getting at. If you're not sure, always try to provethe other answer choices wrong w/ the information given to arrive at the answer choice.
Anatomy - lots. Most were pretty easy. But anatomy is one of my strengths, so I'm not really good at assessing this. Not really sure what you could do to prepare yourself for this except to know the major nerve supply/arteries/muscles to/in all parts of the body. That'll get you the majority of the questions.
Immuno/pathology/onc - almost non-existent. I was slammed w/ these on my USMLE. was surprised when I didn't see much about these on Comlex. Maybe ~5 questions - easy. Dr Sattar is a genius w/ these. Don't think I missed a single question on immuno/path/onc b/w USMLE and COMLEX bc of this man.
Ethics/biostats/law - straightforward. some odd questions, but that's to be expected. Honestly, I thought these + the psych were the most well written questions out of the entire exam. For extra ethics/law questions, reference BRS behavioral sciences. They include several scenarios that are not presented in DIT/Uworld/FA and include a good synopsis of some of the major ethical principles, etc. Had maybe 1-2 biostats questions that were like sweet candy in my mouth.
Cardio - easy - if you understand the basics of cardio phys, and how the parameters of CV function might change w/ different pathologies, you should be completely fine. Basically just know FA. do a few questions, and you'll be good to go. If you're used to CV phys on Uworld, you're way too prepared.
GI - not much. can't remember anything difficult about this section. Or anything at all really. Haha.
Renal - not many questions - most were easy. 1 was extremely poorly written. but again, expect that and make the best of it.
MSK - not much. easy if you've read FA.
Biochem - ridiculously easy.
I know I've said a lot of these sections were easy. And to be honest, in terms of a good ~80% of all the questions on these systems, they were easy, and if you've studied FA well and worked through qs in a qbank, you'll be solid. However, all sections had about a good 10-15% of questions that were incredibly poorly written and difficult to understand --- either I really couldn't figure out what they were trying to ask me, or the stem/answer choices contained factually incorrect information -- which just confused me. When you see spelling errors on a national board exam, you know that factual errors are possible. So just disregard that and try to assume what they'd be asking. Then there were the 5% of the quesionts that were just EXTREMELY random. Just trivia. Not much you can do there other than to watch some Jeopardy or Family Feud, I guess, and get lucky -- or pray to A-dog Still himself and hope he fills you in on the details. But honestly, some of those qs I was able to get from what I learned in class, or by ruling out all the other choices based on what i knew. Maybe you'll be able to do the same.
All in all, a very poorly written exam. I sat there very disappointed throughout the entirety of the exam, in fact, especially after experiencing the quality of the USMLE just recently. But, on our brighter note, again, its definitely doable. Just be aware that you will have questions that will literally make you angry bc they are so poorly written and stay confident in what you know. At the end of the day, if you feel like something REALLY doesn't make sense, chances are you've been living in this country long enough to be a good enough judge of the English language, and you're not mistaken in thinking that the question really doesn't make any sense. And don't worry, because everybody else is thinking the same thing.
Not sure how I did. I know I passed, but I don't like to get my hopes up. I did well on all my practice exams (mainly NBMEs) so hopefully I didn't screw up today and make 400 stupid mistakes, haha.
Anyway, thanks to all that posted previously about their experiences. And to the rest of you, good luck.
What should I be doing now? What should I be concentrating on? 
